Flow
by SydnieWren
Summary: Killing for a living grinds one down. Full-time loneliness is a rough job. Kakashi and Iruka save one another. KakaxIru. Anal, Oral, Dark. Now back!
1. Sink

**Hey guys. I took this down a while back on a different account, but now it's back! I really hope you enjoy it! **

**As always, please enjoy, and please - I really can't beg enough - review. I'm thinking of adding a sequel to Flow, since the last time it was posted it met with such positive responses. So keep an eye out for it!**

**DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.**

**WARNINGS: Sexual content, violence, swearing, general darkness.**

* * *

Nimbler.

That was it - nimbler. He was walking much nimbler than anyone had any right to when coated in blood and pulpy-pink gum tissue and bone fragments and rapidly drying bile. To his perceived credit, his mind was swimming slightly, out of step with his agile body. Moving so gracefully - every step landing with perfect balance, every stride made in perfect time - it seemed incongruous, possibly laughably so, with his mental state. The humor was classic: two entirely opposing things being thrust together.

Perhaps not classic - perhaps absent.

Regardless, the canopies of the trees were losing their battle against the persistent, drizzling rain. Their branches became slick and smooth and shiny, offering an extra hazard. Kakashi attempted to focus on his travel to avoid whatever thoughts had muddled his mind previously.

In a sense, he felt he had to be grateful for ANBU. Nights of contemplation had brought him to a point no less sharp and clear than a matter of science. No species could evolve purely as killers; they'd destroy one another. And yet the anomalies occurred. Kakashi was an anomaly -

He frowned as he failed to slip on a particularly weak, half-sapling branch.

- an anomaly with an outlet. His propensity for dealing out death could be made proper use of by a legitimate, government-sanctioned group.

The ground flashed by beneath him. Patches of soil near tree roots remained dry, but the majority of the forest floor had already sunken into the deep color of wet earth. Grass blades were weighted down with the gathering water, and among the uneven terrain, little streams began to form.

Mist began to drift down among the trees, and the taste of rain passed his lips in breaths and breezes. Humid, and fresh, and in all of it a promise of some kind of new beginning; it would, after all, soon be spring time.

It was winter yet.

There was almost a rhythm to his movements, a pattern so practiced and flawless that, despite the irregularity and unpredictable placement and strength of the branches, still carried him swiftly and without incident from the site of the end-game of his mission to the walls of Konoha.

As he passed through the gates he found the past few hours dissipating, like fog upon approach, little beads of time receding into shadow. The pallor of it all still hung over him, though, along with the scents and the feelings and the sounds of it all. Luckily the humidity kept the fluids on his canvas-like clothes from solidifying enough to make them unwearable. He slung his mask over his shoulder.

The kunai he hadn't realized he'd been gripping tightly in his right hand was replaced in its holster as he moved into the city. Oddly he felt as if he was - or at least should've been - stumbling, though still his steps were as sure as always. Being on the ground, and in the city - somehow it seemed appropriate, as if returning from a mission was a departure from another reality, and a settling back into the true one.

It just wasn't that easy.

Corded muscles slackened slightly as Kakashi loosened his shoulders, releasing his alert stance and resigning himself to his characteristic slouch. To the outsider the process would seem like a relaxing dismissal of duty-produced tension, and yet it was difficult - forceful, almost. Shoulders stooped and hands in his pockets, Kakashi waded through the gathering mist and into the city proper.

He raised an open palm to passers-by who knew him, and offered his shut-eye smile. Smiling beneath a mask, he pondered idly, was probably a little useless, a little superficial...

Sometimes he just closed his eye.

A number of the shops had closed for the evening, while the eating establishments were just opening up. Little candles in plastic containers fitted with wind-resistant lids lined the open bars of booths and stalls, which, due to their warmth and protection from the rain, had begun to draw small, eager crowds. Their murmurs and laughs were barely audible to Kakashi, muffled perhaps by the mist, or something more.

Still the smell got to him. It suddenly occurred to him that he hadn't eaten in quite some time, and that the last taste in his mouth had been that of metal, and the coppery, sticky taint of blood. He pressed the tip of his tongue against the roof of his mouth and still found it there, lingering. Periodically he would attempt to slow to a stall in his gait, considering approaching one of the crowded, open-air booths. It was tempting, nearly convincing - but he couldn't bring himself to do it.

Approaching a shop would mean speaking to people, no matter how he hunkered down or stared straight ahead. He didn't have the words for it. It was too hard - impossible, nearly - to step out of a mindset that allowed (if not demanded) killing anyone who would be easier killed than let go, if only by a fraction. Anyone that stood between he and the target. Anyone who stood at all. How could he go from hours of that to, 'Thank you - haha, yes - and you! See you later!' - the thought consumed him. Small talk: he hated it, and was practiced in it. It felt like old vomit on his tongue, burning lightly, drying his mouth and leaving a bitter taste behind.

His eye focused directly ahead. On the edges of his vision, the gathering groups of people went about like swarms of flies.

Meat. Moving slabs of meat. They all were - and yet, they weren't. A line had been drawn, and the mission instructions made it as glaring and real as possible. The target, and every body between the outer gates of Kohona and the target - they were just meat. But the city was a little haven of smiling faces and little hands and happy laughter, where nothing cruel could be allowed to happen. Konohakagure was Earth's last innocence, or so it would've been easier to believe. The ANBU allowed Kakashi every possible opportunity to draw a distinction between the target and those floating around him with cheerful smiles like lost fireflies - but the discrimination was as flimsy and pale as soaked cardboard.

He had wandered far from home.

The scent of fresh food still clung lightly to his psyche. It was time to eat, but he couldn't go back there. That night was no night for retracing steps of any kind. As if with no direction in mind, he moved toward one of the small, corner grocery stores. It would do to make something on his own, or eat something raw, or to do anything but to lie down in bed hungry.

A mess of mud and water had already accumulated at the store's entrance as blood joined the mix, washing from Kakashi's sandals and the few open wounds sparsely lining his legs. The teenager at the counter, who had previously been slouched over, cheek in her palm as she thumbed through a fashion magazine, perked up at the sound of a new customer, and yet immediately glanced away. ANBU uniform, bloody, the wolf mask at the shoulder - Kakashi knew he must've been a sight to behold, but he refused to look at her, even to offer a nod or a friendly wave. He grimaced.

What, did she think he was going to kill her? She had turned to busy herself with organizing the cigarettes and black-covered magazines behind the counter, shaken by the intersection of their existences. Kakashi moved down an aisle that hid him from her, and at once she stopped her shuffling about. Did she think, he wondered, that he was going to mince her like he had his target? His target's cronies? That he was going to slice her into ribbons of flesh or slit her throat and leave her? That he was going to press his thumbs into her tender neck until her lips turned blue and blood trickled from them? And why shouldn't he?

At the moment, not being a target didn't seem like a very strong excuse. Still, Kakashi surveyed the cans and bags and packages calmly, unaffected by the bright colors or shiny wrapping. A very sudden noise drew his attention from the innermost layers of his consciousness to the present. Stumbling, and muttered curses heaved in a sigh.

Genma. Slouched with drunken languidness, he moved disjointedly forward, yanking a few products off of their shelves as he attempted to steady himself. Kakashi stood and watched, his words joining the faint taste of blood in his mouth as they failed to sound. He knew, anyhow, the feelings that brought a man to Genma's position. The two of them were, after all, only about two feet apart.

"Oi, Kakashi." Genma slurred, leaning heavily on the shelves.

"Oi, Genma."

The florescent lights made the yellowish shine on Genma's eyes all the more sickly, and the sheen of sweat and grime of dirt all the more filthy. After a couple of gulps for air, his fingers wrapped around the bottle he'd settled on the shelf, curling it close to a gloved palm. Somehow through the fog in his mind, his eyes remained focused on Kakashi, searching for something - recognition, perhaps; he found a mirror. Meanwhile Kakashi fought the urge to straighten up, to reach out for him, to help him - to help him.

"You good to get home?" He asked flatly.

"I'll make it..." Genma muttered, slipping in a feeble attempt to straighten up. Kakashi assisted him back to his feet and smelt the harsh, eye-watering sting of cheap alcohol on him, shaded with sweat, fury, blood. Genma's fingerless gloves left brown-red smears on the silvery ANBU arm-guards. Kakashi understood.

He left as quickly as he possibly could, barely heeding the half-trembling teenager at the register. She rang up his purchase and then watched him go with wide eyes, nibbling her gloss-smeared lip as he disappeared into the rapidly falling rain.

Arriving home drenched was welcome, despite the acidity of the cool droplets which bathed the numerous cuts lining his body. Between the cold evening and the chilled precipitation, Kakashi could hardly find his way; it was only habit, old and worn as familiar fear, which brought him to his doorstep. He faltered. He fumbled with his keys. He dropped the can of umeboshi he'd purchased. He tripped the trap he'd set just two days previous, and narrowly dodged a flying shuriken, which then ricocheted distantly in the adjacent alley. By the time he managed to push the door open, he was trembling lightly, from the chill of the rain, and from that nearly imperceptible tension that had built within him, pulling his psyche tight and rigid and brittle like a harpstring.

The door shut lightly behind him, leaving the apartment unnaturally silent, still, and settled. It seemed as though not a single particle of dust had moved since he had left his home. The same half-open books were splayed hap-hazardly about his wall-mounted shelves; the couch was in its normal state of stained disrepair; the carpet was as worn and matted from mud, blood and feet as it had always been; and despite being cluttered with souvenirs, knick-knacks of various sources and a number of cherished photographs, the place still felt entirely empty.

'Unlived in.' Kakashi thought as he strode from his small entry hall to the kitchenette that overlooked his living room. Perhaps, he supposed, it was unlived in. florescent lights flickered on with their familiar hum. Droplets of water and faded blood collected on the linoleum tiles. Kakashi ran the umeboshi under the can-opener.

Rain always pleased him. Outside, the world sounded alive, no matter how chaotic: the wind stirred the trees, the drops pounded the window panes and shingles, and the thunder churned the sky. Proof of something beyond the confines of thin, pock-marked and paper-peeling walls was enough to relieve the loneliness. Sometimes, Kakashi turned on the television for the same reason, happy even at the company of the most mind-numbing trash polluting the air waves. As a puppy, Pakkun had been treated to the same luxury, often sleeping next to a clock wrapped in a warm blanket to simulate a living companion...

Thunder crashed. Kakashi's glance snapped up, and, half-embarrassed, he shut off the can opener.

Unthinking, he moved to his couch, propping his feet up on the small, worn table that stood before the television. Without any particular focus, his eye remained fully open; he stared into blank space. After sliding his mask down over his chin, he considered turning on the television, but his hand stopped short of the remote. Nothing on it...held any interest. The simulated companionship would be nothing but a magnifier of his loneliness, and there was certainly no content worth bothering with. Slowly, he brought the salty, sour umeboshi to his lips, chewing and swallowing mechanically, thoughtlessly.

The mission had gone well in the only sense that missions could: everyone scheduled to die was killed, and every objective completed. Some stupid chuunin he had encountered had obviously bought into the 'throw weapons indiscriminately' school of fighting, which, while easy to defeat, was irritating in the amount of small wounds it inflicted. He dispatched her quickly, and the civilian who had been toting her equipment. He wasn't even certain that she was involved - but she was there, and a potential threat. Blood had painted the walls when Kakashi had beheaded the target. Killing the target's personal body guard was easy and smooth; killing his wife was a sight uglier: he had split her open, spilling intestines like compressed confetti. The shinobi he'd encountered once finished were easily finished, swatted like flies, and the final fatality report would read nine.

His fingers brushed the bottom of the can. He crushed the empty tin in his palm and let it topple to the ground.

Nine. Nine people, some shinobi like himself, his students, his friends, alive and dead. Six hitai-ate blood stained and tarnished, laid on burial sites, or tucked in coffins. One backpack found on the forest floor. Two wedding rings, eternally sealing a bond deeper than corruption or murder. There was something so unsettling about the business of it, a shared confusion among all shinobi: if those people had been part of their own village, killing them would be a crime. Instead, they were just collateral damage. It wasn't fair - the thought stood stark and alone in Kakashi's otherwise empty, dulled mind - it wasn't fair to give that sort of admission to someone, and then expect them to always draw the perfect, painless distinction that allowed for shameless killing based on paperwork and technicalities.

Thinking of it made no difference. Kakashi sighed. Hands empty and stomach partially filled, he began to tug off his clothing, suddenly hyper-aware of the wet fibers soaking his couch and itching the matted masses of coagulated blood at his wounds. The breast plate went first, and then the shirt, yanking the hitai-ate off as he forced it over his head. Gooseflesh formed on his naked chest and abdomen. A shiver ran through him as he stood to unzip his pants, supposing that a night on the couch would be better than facing the terrible loneliness of the tiny bedroom he normally slept in. Thumbs hooked in the waistline, he pushed his pants down, sliding them over sharp hip bones and the toned, muscular plane of his stomach. After catching the cloth of one fingerless glove in his teeth, he tugged it off, followed by the other, and released his arm guards.

He sank back onto the couch, and, resuming his previous posture, cupped his sex. It had been a long time. Sex was difficult to come by on short missions, and even then, it was poor, rough, groping encounters in squalid tents on the forest floor, masks always on. Animal, bloody, satisfying only the most biological of drives. Jerking off wasn't exactly his preference, but in an effort to clear his mind and relax himself, anything seemed fair game.

There was hardly any fantasy to it. It wasn't about that. Kakashi allowed his eyes to shut and his shoulders to relax as he ran his fingertips over the head of his sex, sending little jolts of pleasure throughout his body. His head lolled back slightly as he wrapped his fingers around his shaft, encouraging the hardness that was beginning to form. Finding it difficult to come up with anything particularly arousing, Kakashi instead set his mind to imagining nothing at all, to simply focusing on the present pleasure, no matter how nominal or transparent.

Almost imperceptibly, his ministrations took on a different tenor.

Images flashed against the blackness of his closed eyes. The lean figure rarely revealed - only brief glimpses of surprisingly delicate hands, and elegant collar bones - rich, tanned skin matched with sensitive, thoughtful dark eyes - the seldom loose mass of glossy brown hair - and those lips, God, those lips -

Kakashi's movements became rapid and jerky as the images persisted. His mouth opened slightly, and he gave low, broken groans of pleasure as his orgasm built unusually fast within him. Every vision brought a new level of sensitivity to his flesh, causing waves of fierce pleasure to ripple through him at the slightest brush of fabric against his thighs or nipples. Eyes still squeezed shut, he brought his shoulders up from their position against the couch, and lifted his head as well, hunching slightly over. His hips bucked. The visions of cinnamon colored skin and soft, plush lips wrapped around his sex persisted, hastening his pace.

Sweat-sheened, tan flesh, the slender waist, chest heaving, hands tangled in thick, dark hair, moaning - Iruka.

Kakashi's orgasm was marked only by a distinct, harsh shudder, and the white liquid which quickly coated his hand. Moments after he remained still, eyes still closed as he slumped against the sofa. For some time, the only motion of his body was his panting, and eventually it slowed to a still with his other senses. Sleep had nearly drawn him to its shores when a flash of lightning split the sky, followed by a rush of thunder that rattled the window panes. In its wake, only rain fell.

His mind numbed from the events of his day and the recent orgasm, Kakashi moved into the bathroom with his gear, and stripped off his remaining clothes. He left his armor in the floor of the shower to be cleansed as he was: swiftly, with searing water. The fog that seemed to have settled over his senses was welcome, if not needed. There were too many questions, and too many thoughts. As if in a daze, he finished showering. He dried quickly, if not incompletely. He turned the lights off.

In the following days, Kakashi would not remember stumbling into his room, falling into bed, or sifting through the hours that passed before sleep finally came.


	2. Drown

A.

C.

B - wrong.

Iruka struck out the messily scrawled letter with a single, resolute stroke of red ink.

A - wrong.

C - wrong again.

D - still wrong.

Iruka dropped the pen with a frustrated sigh and buried his face in his palms, massaging out the forming headache. Had his students just stopped trying? Sometimes he found it hard to believe that he willed himself out of bed each morning only to lecture what seemed to be a class full of deaf students. Each year they seemed less interested, save for the occasional prodigy. Certainly no children enjoyed being cooped up in a classroom with the outdoors painfully near, yet he was certain that he had never felt quite so invisible before. They just...didn't care.

After finishing the paper - which accumulated to an agonizingly obvious F - Iruka placed it behind the clip of the 'graded' stack, and leaned back in his chair. Each time he glanced at the collection of papers to be graded, they seemed greater and greater in number, slowly chipping away at his spirit. None of the students seemed to try, and thus it was difficult to work up the inspiration required to devote hours to the meticulous checking of their work. In the older, better days, he had often been persuaded to provide rather generous curves, but lately, that hardly seemed an issue...

Lightning flashed, and Iruka suddenly became aware that he had allowed his eyes to drift shut. They snapped open at once as he straightened and glanced at the windows. The panes had been pounded by rain for the past half hour or so, seemingly carried on the current of nightfall. Other than the rhythmic rushing of the rain, Iruka had only the quiet sounds of the custodian in the hallways to keep him company as he stayed late. The rusty wheels on the plastic mop bucket squeaked and fell silent at perfectly timed intervals as the worker moved along, steadily tidying up the school. Alone in his room, the noise was almost soothing, or at least superior to the incessant hum of florescent lights, which always became oppressive on silent evenings.

Frowning, he wearily took up his pen again, and set in on another paper.

B - wrong.

A - wrong again.

Another flash of lightning caused the lights to flicker. Imperceptibly, his mind began to wander again, drifting into hazy, unknown planes in which sloppy handwriting didn't yield proof of his inadequacy, and Friday nights were not spent in a school house with only a nameless janitor as company. Naruto came to mind, though his forehead was adorned only with a silly pair of goggles, and his smile still bore the untarnished brightness of optimism that had begun to slowly wear away as of present. Iruka could almost feel the boy moving further and further from him as the world came into sharper focus for him. Perhaps, the chuunin reasoned, Naruto held him responsible for attempting to shelter him from the cruelty of it all...

Thunder rattled the earth as Iruka's pen once more fell from his slackened fingers and rolled to the edge of his desk.

Another frustrated sigh. Another paper half-graded.

Iruka finally gave up. With a grimace, he brusquely stacked the papers up, clipped them, and placed them into his portfolio. He stood behind his desk as he slid the elastic loop around the circular closure of the folder, and tucked it away inside of his uppermost drawer. It wouldn't do, he supposed, to keep working at them without the ability to properly concentrate. That morning, he had been too distracted even to turn on the small television that rested on his kitchen counter in time for the weather report, and thus, he was entirely unprepared for the thunderstorm. His umbrella, suitably green with a leaf decoration situated near the top, was safely bound and waiting in the closet at his house. He frowned.

The custodian was still slowly mopping the floor as Iruka exited his room, mechanically sweeping the handle back and forth as if in a trance. The old man glanced over his shoulder momentarily, and Iruka offered a brief, amiable wave as he shut his classroom door. A nod was the man's only response before turning back to his work with a rather blank expression. Perhaps, the chuunin considered as he chewed his lip and strode down the long hall to the exit, the man had possessed the same illusion of company that he had from simply hearing the sounds of his work in the corridor.

The illusion ended there.

Iruka shouldered open the heavy metal double door, finding it difficult to force against the rain. It fell in heavy sheets, battering the earthen ground to muddy slush, pouring down the rain chains dangling from shop awnings, and flooding the gutters with rushing torrents. There was no sign of moon nor stars; the pitch blackness of night was compounded by the storm. Few lights remained in the windows of shops or houses, blurry and distant and dim. Iruka nearly slipped as his sandals sank into the mud, which had begun to accumulate a layer of standing water above the thin sludge. He lifted his arm to shield his eyes somewhat, and tugged his chuunin flak jacket a little tighter, a little higher on his shoulders. It was nothing against the rain, or the penetrating cold.

He attempted the driest route home possible, ducking into trash-strewn alleyways somewhat protected by the slant of the rain versus the direction of the building. Cats cowering beneath garbage can lids glared out at him, watching with reflective, wide eyes as he passed by. Rats scampered about as his footsteps drew closer, scavenging the rubbish blown about by the relentless wind.

Iruka was thoroughly soaked by the time he reached his apartment. A teacher's salary was barely enough to afford what was, compared to other places of equal size, a fine dwelling. Long ago he had ceased going on missions, and the lack of supplement hurt. However, the Hokage, in all of her wise mercy, had appointed him a job in the mission room which helped to keep him financially stable.

It also brought him face-to-mask with a certain copy nin quite frequently.

Iruka slid his key into the lock and pushed the door open, stepping gingerly inside to spare as much carpet as he could from the mud and water dripping off of his soaked clothes and shoes. After shutting and locking the door behind him, he carefully removed one sandal, and then the next, leaning against the wall for balance. Sock-footed, he moved to the small laundry closet, and immediately deposited the remainder of his clothing in the washing machine. Even in private, he was embarrassed by his brief nudity, and quickly snatched a white robe from the drying rack to tug around his chilled body.

He stood before the washing machine for a few moments, hands on the edge, staring into it. In the past, it wouldn't have been uncommon to find a silly orange outfit tangled with his own clothing, waiting to be cleaned and dried. Naruto's visits had become decreasingly common since he'd taken up training with Kakashi. In a way, Iruka was jealous of the man. He supposed Kakashi could sense it: as of recent, he had begun to periodically surface in Iruka's classroom during his down time, ostensibly to give reports on Naruto's progress. To Iruka's chagrin, he was always initially glad to receive him, though something about his presence - the dangerousness lurking beneath an apathetic exterior, the dry humor, the hard body concealed entirely save a sliver of face and glimpse of hands - seemed to destroy the chuunin's composure.

Iruka brought his hand to his forehead. It seemed that his concentration was completely shot. His train of thought, he told himself, was completely non-sequitus. Yet he knew that it was not. It wasn't hard, given any consideration, to note that his missing Naruto had been assuaged only by the introduction of Kakashi to his life, and he feared he would ruin even that due to the strange effect the jounin had on him.

It was very simple.

It was incredibly complicated.

He started the wash and then shut the small closet. Cinching the belt of the robe tightly around his narrow waist, he wandered into the kitchen, switching on lights as he moved. Nearly everything in his house was neat, clean and tidy. Living alone didn't call for much. He owned exactly three bowls, three plates, three spoons, three knives, and three pairs of chopsticks. Initially he had owned only two of each, in case of company. The third set had only come along due to Naruto, whose extraordinary eating habits meant that there would nearly always be a set in the wash. Numerous afternoons had been spent cooking with the boy, and then enjoying their work together. Naruto had always been somewhat evanescent, appearing for breakfast and then skipping out into the streets to play, returning for a hearty lunch, getting lost in the sunshine again before finally coming back for dinner and a good night's rest in Iruka's home. Those had been the better days.

Steamed vegetables from a previous night remained in a blue-lidded container in the refrigerator. Iruka frowned as he popped the top off and sniffed the left-overs, and, despite being pleased with their (relative) freshness, he still found it a little less than preferable to eat old food. Still, he emptied the contents of the container onto a plate, and placed it into the microwave to warm thoroughly. Turning from the humming appliance, he lifted a pan from a low drawer, and filled it with water in the small sink. With a quick reach behind himself he started the stove to heating, and shortly, placed the pan atop a burner to begin to boil.

Those moments were perhaps the most difficult. In the silence, Iruka felt most alone. There wasn't even any prospect of someone knocking at his door or calling him just to talk. Sighing, he wrapped his arms around himself, consumed with the implacable pain of waiting. His thick, dark lashes settled against tan cheeks as he let his eyes drift thoughtfully closed. Most of his life, it seemed, was composed of waiting. Waiting for friendship, waiting for adulthood, waiting for the end of the day, waiting for love, waiting to meet 'that someone'...All of it seemed like wasted time. He found that the things he had waited for - the things he had yearned for, ached for - had either been disappointing upon arrival or absent all together.

He turned as the water began to boil, little crystal domes forming and falling rapidly as the noodles slid into the whirling heat. Quite suddenly, he found himself feeling a great deal more tired than he had only moments ago; a listlessness formed inside of him and sunk his posture, causing him to brace his forearm against the countertop and lean over the steaming pot, barely squinting his eyes as he stirred the softening noodles.

A few moments later, he combined the noodles and vegetables on the plate, leaving the pot and container filled with soapy water in the sink. After glancing briefly at the table tucked neatly into the breakfast nook with its two lonely chairs, he sighed and moved back toward the countertop, reaching over the sink to switch on the little television set he kept there. The glassy, convex screen flickered to life with a rush of static waves and half-muted, half-livid color. The flesh of the newscasters narrating the evening report was a gaudy orange; the backdrop behind them a thin, greyish blue. Iruka carefully picked up his plate, and, despite the fact that he could barely hear the electronic voices of the anchor people over the roiling storm outside, he sat in their company and began to eat.

A sliver of carrot balanced on a cluster of rice passed his lips, and he chewed thoughtlessly. He was unable to concentrate, unable to organize his thoughts - he was hardly even able to discern his location and current activity. He was certain, in some region of his mind hardly known to him and barely functioning, that if someone had appeared and inquired as to what he was doing, he would've been entirely at a loss to explain it. It felt as though the thick rain outside had fallen directly into his soul, stirring every drifting notion of inadequacy, loneliness and misery until nothing was discernable from the torrent of despair save thoughts of Kakashi - a man who, by all accounts, he barely knew - and Naruto, a boy who seemed to have all but forgotten him. The two of them existed in a vision of Konoha and life in general that Iruka had struggled to continue believing in even through the slaughter of his parents and subsequent decline of his life. Caring for Naruto had been his salvation, and thus, the gap left by the boy's ever-growing absence widened, threatening to swallow Iruka into his own emptiness given only a little more time. The only stay on the entire process, however, was a silver-haired ninja who the teacher felt vastly inferior to, strangely in awe of, and inexplicably drawn toward.

Iruka had stopped eating long ago. By the time thunder heralded the sudden death of the television and darkening of his apartment, the tears hanging precariously from his eyelashes had begun to plumpen and fall. He sat in the silence left in the wake of the power outage for a few long moments, shoulders shaking with the effort of quieting his sobs. Burning pressure built in his sinuses until he could no longer contain it. Face cradled in his palms, Iruka cried until the tears simply faded into nothingness, leaving him drained and empty, sitting alone at his table.

Moving with only the guidance of habit, he lifted his plate from the table and placed it in the sink, along with his utensils.A bone-deep coldness had managed to overtake him; he shivered as his bare feet crossed the soft carpet of his modest living room. In his bedroom, he gently eased the tie out of his hair, and then loosened the belt about his slender waist, allowing the robe to pool at his ankles.

He pulled the blankets up to his shoulders and burrowed deeply into his bed. Though his eyelids felt grainy and stung, he squeezed them closed, and waited desperately for sleep to overtake him, hoping, as he hoped every night, that he was at the lowest of the low - that there was nowhere to go but up.


	3. Swim

**Hey guys. A lot of the reviews contained complaints about the ambiguity of the scene breaks - understandably so! I want to thank everyone who read it in its confusing format, and I'll be dedicating the sequel to Flow (coming soon!) to those brave souls. But as of now, I'm visibly breaking up the scenes to increase readability. **

**Enjoy!**

* * *

It seemed laughably strange to Iruka upon awaking the next morning that he had felt as though he stood on a precipice the night before, expecting without any reason that everything would be different with the rising of the sun.

Yet nothing had changed save the dissolving of the previous night's storm. He rubbed at his eyes as the rosy rays of dawn penetrated his lids. It was the third day in a row he had risen before his alarm clock beckoned, despite the fact that his concentration seemed to be divided a thousand different ways. With a brief yawn, he slung his legs over the edge of his bed, and sat still for a moment, silently reflecting on the events of the night before.

Most people, he realized, did not lead lives of profundity. Slowly, he sank into resignation. It only seemed silly to him, in retrospect, to expect that his life would be particularly special.

After starting a kettle of tea on the stove, he slipped into the shower, silently washing his toned, slim body. Contemplation wracked his psyche. It was a fool's errand, he knew, to judge lives in terms of fairness - after all, no one promised anyone the same opportunities. Still, just as the coursing streams of hot water failed to refresh his tired, drained body, the realization of the harder facts of life failed to bring him to terms with his situation.

He shut off the water and snatched a towel from the rack hanging on the blue-papered wall.

Once again, he ate a small, healthy breakfast alone at his kitchen table, the morning news and weather report droning on in pitchy, static-laden tones, far outside his consciousness.

* * *

Kakashi approached the half-rinsed armor in the floor of his shower the next morning with his hands on his hips. Blood had crusted to the undersides of a few panels like caked rust, staining the pale color a deep, coppery brown.

'Guess it wasn't arterial.' The copy nin noted numbly.

He knelt with a peroxide-soaked cloth and scrubbed at the more obvious stains, his mind nearly entirely absent from the process. It was best, he figured, to refuse to contemplate the mission. He had to face the team that day. It would be impossible to maintain the exterior they expected and so desperately needed at such a tender, transitionary period in their lives while locked in the lethal mindset required to properly - or at least safely for his sanity - analyze such things. The kids believed they had seen him at his absolute worst - or best, depending on which one of them was asked - on the bridge that day. However, by Kakashi's standards, a fist through the chest was a relatively gentle form of execution.

The filthy runoff swirled down the grated drain in a grainy stream.

Kakashi turned off the water and stood, rolling his shoulders as he gathered the rinsed, dripping equipment from the floor of the shower.

After he had put the gear away - the cloth bits hung in the back of his closet, and the armor tucked away in a hard-worn footlocker - he wandered into the kitchen to find something to eat. There was very little that wasn't rotten or freeze-dried, and cereal with water wasn't quite appealing...Nothing was. He ran his hand over the muscular plane of his stomach and then through his hair. The prospect of a long day stretched out before him like an endless, empty road. There had to be, he thought, something in the great city of Konoha to eat up his time and occupy his mind...

Iruka.

The thought seemed suddenly to have been at the borders of his mind, separated from his conscious thought only by a thin membrane of selective amnesia and ennui. Once the image of the school teacher was clear in his mind, however, it seemed as though he had been thinking of him all along. Of course, upon considerable thought, his company was much more than a method of time consumption. In Iruka's presence, most likely due to his caring nature, the world seemed to slow to a kindly microcosm generated by his shy tenderness.

It was on that account that Kakashi washed his face, gathered the mission report from the previous night, and set out to find Iruka.

* * *

Class had not even been marginally less exhausting than usual. Iruka didn't expect the children, of all people, to sense his lethargy and confusion, but on some shamefully immature level, he resented them for not doing so. They had been up to their usual antics: talking and laughing loudly and uncontrollably, shirking work, demanding breaks at thirty minute intervals, ignoring Iruka's lecturing and asking to use the restroom incessantly.

"Iruka-thenthei, I hafta use the baffroom!" One front-toothless boy begged.

"Jirou, you've used the restroom twice this morning. I don't think you need to go again." Iruka sighed, massaging his temples as he sat at his desk.

"But I do! I really, really do!" The boy insisted, stamping his feet and clenching his chubby, grubby hands.

"Are you feeling well?" Iruka inquired, sitting up slightly to feign concern.

"I feel -" The boy stopped for a moment and obviously considered his options. "That'th right, Iruka thenthei! I feel thorta...thorta bad! I haff a fever!"

The brunette sighed deeply and opened the top drawer of his desk, removing a small wooden pass reading 'CLINIC' in painted-on blue letters. It was worn and chipped (though he couldn't fathom how it had encountered such misuse) and hung precariously from a thin yarn cord. Naturally, it was clear that the boy had nothing wrong with him save, perhaps, parents of an incredibly lenient disposition. Iruka handed him the pass with a slight frown and sent him out of class.

"Iruka-sensei, I don't feel good either!" A pigtailed girl immediately piped up.

"Me neither!" Another boy shouted, jumping up behind his desk in a rain of broken crayons and minced construction paper.

"You can't possibly-" Iruka's exasperated gasp was cut mercifully short by the toning of the school bell that signalled lunch. The desks were almost immediately abandoned, leaving the teacher alone in the room with little more than a few still-rolling crayons. He sunk into his seat, utterly drained. His first inclination was to allow his forehead to rest on the unruly stack of papers piled on the desktop, but he straightened at once at the sound of feet in the hall. The stride was smooth, purposeful - in a mere moment, Kakashi was standing, palm open and facing him, in his doorway. Iruka stood to greet him, suffering the effects of his presence already as his hands shook and his words caught in his throat.

"'Afternoon, Iruka-sensei." Kakashi offered amiably, along with his shut-eyed smile.

"Ah - ahem. G-good afternoon, Kakashi-san. To what do I owe the visit?" Iruka busied himself with stacking and organizing the papers littering his desk, slightly embarrassed by the disorder. The copy-nin didn't seem to mind in the least.

"Oh, I just thought you'd like an update on Naruto."

The words stung unimaginably at Iruka's heart. He attempted to hide the wince that flickered over his soft features, though it hardly escaped Kakashi's sharp perception - after all, he considered blankly, a killer could never afford to miss a detail. At that thought, his mouth drew into a thin line, and he glanced away from the meek teacher. He consciously relaxed his posture, forcing his tight, athletic body into an oddly practiced slouch. It felt something like retreat.

"Of course." Iruka replied after a moment, quieter than he would've liked. He eased into his seat again and directed his full attention to Kakashi.

The silver-haired shinobi moved nearer to him alost imperceptibly. He noted the surprise in Iruka's soft brown eyes when he recognized how swiftly and silently the distance had been crossed, and on some level of his psyche unknown even to him, it stung. He was reminded of the girl in the store on the previous night, who seemed to tremble at his mere presence. It felt like a foolish lie when he silently assured himself 'I am not a monster.'

"He's actually keeping up much better than I initially thought he would." Kakashi explained, slipping his hands into his pockets. Iruka seemed a bit miffed by the statement, but the copy nin went on anyhow. "I think Sasuke is good for him. If he was any weaker, Naruto wouldn't really have very much to work toward." He finished his explanation with a smile and waited for the brunette's response.

Iruka, for his part, was somewhat bothered. He had spent hours of lunch detention, after school detention and weekend detention in order to reprimand the boys for constantly bickering. Now, it seemed, Kakashi was kindling their rivalry in order to motivate them. Logically, it was a very sensible thing to do - after all, each of them hated to lose to the other - but the chuunin worried for the havoc it could potentially wreak on Naruto's tender heart. The boy truly was, in Iruka's sincere opinion, a sweet-natured soul who ached genuinely each time anyone disapproved of him or refused him friendship. His little spirit already seemed battered by rejection...

"I should talk to Naruto." Iruka sighed, nearly forgetting that Kakashi was observing him.

"You should come to lunch with us tomorrow." Kakashi made the offer long before he considered the implications. Of course, he'd promised Naruto and Sakura that he'd have lunch with them after his mission as a form of apology for being away so long - but then again, he'd never necessarily intended on keeping that promise. Bringing Iruka along somehow changed the entire tenor of the situation, and vaguely, in the back of his mind, Kakashi wondered if the brunette had guessed that he jerked off to him.

Iruka simply gaped. "Lunch - tomorrow?"

"Why not?" Kakashi struggled for some reason other than that. "You're looking kind of skinny, Iruka-sensei." He finally blurted out. 'Fabulous.' He thought. 'Another fantastic social failure for Hatake Kakashi.'

Iruka frowned. "I've been busy." He ground out, straightening his posture. Cold fear settled in his veins at the thought of Kakashi discovering the true root of his thinness. And, though he attempted to harden his features into the classic 'teacher' look, the ever-perceptive eyes of the elder man discerned the flash of emotion before it entirely flickered out.

"Well," Kakashi said, moving closer yet to his desk until his palm was flat on the surface, "Get un-busy, and meet us tomorrow at twelve. It'll be after training, so the kid will be winded enough to sit still for a minute or two. I'll make sure of it."

"You're too hard on him." Came the expected sigh. Kakashi stood up and turned, waving over his shoulder.

"It's for his own good! See you later, Iruka-sensei!"

And then, Iruka was alone again, shaken to his core. Though he felt more unsettled than perhaps ever before in his life, it was more pleasant than the alternative.

* * *

Lunch was strange, a fact that Iruka was aware of upon the moment of his arrival.

Kakashi was on time.

Naruto was tired.

He was excited to see both of them - not just Naruto.

The boy had the strength to nestle into Iruka's open arms, a gesture which had an unusual effect on Kakashi. He knew he should've expected something like that, and yet it looked so natural. Vaguely, as he took his seat at one of the colored stools at Ichiraku, he wondered how many people who had enjoyed such embraces had died at his hands.

Iruka, meanwhile, hugged the boy for as long as he could without inducing that squirming and whining that little boys seemed to feel necessary at any show of affection. Naruto hopped on a stool as well, and Iruka sat beside him - which oddly caused Kakashi to relocate nearer to them.

"It'll be on me." The copy nin declared flatly. Iruka's eyebrows shot up.

"Kakashi-san, there's no need! At least let me pay for Naruto! You know how he eats!"

"I'm growing!" Naruto interjected with a wide grin. "Naa, Sasuke-kun is shorter than me. Did you know that, Iruka-sensei?"

Iruka laughed and placed a gentle hand on the boy's shoulder. "You do seem to be getting bigger, I have to admit."

"You don't." Kakashi said pointedly with a glance at Iruka.

The brunette, caught off guard, was silent for a moment, and then responded simply with: "Well, Kakashi-san, I've finished growing."

"You're shrinking." The silver haired man responded.

"I'm not!"

"You are. You're thinner than you were two months ago, anyhow."

"I've been very busy, Kakashi-san."

"So have I, but I'm not dropping pounds like it's going out of style."

"I - Well, you do seem rather - thin, if it must be said."

"I'm fashionably slim." Kakashi replied smugly.

Flustered, Iruka simply rolled his eyes, and yet conversely, his heart fluttered. He couldn't have known that Kakashi felt nearly exactly the same.

* * *

Night in the mission control room was silent. Iruka had felt oddly exhilarated in the days following lunch with Kakashi and Naruto, though he knew it was a silly endeavor.

It was a matter of common sense. Kakashi was perhaps Konoha's most eligible bachelor. He didn't go on an inordinate amount of missions - Iruka was embarrassed to admit to himself that he kept close track of them - but they were all high in class, which meant that, along with his ANBU service and teaching, he accumulated a steady and healthy income. On the more superficial side, his body was the picture of perfection: muscular, athletic, all planes, angles and sexual appeal. He was mysterious, as well, and had that casual attitude that was so irritating, and yet somehow endearing...

Iruka balanced his chin in his palm and drew spirals idly in the margins of the document before him, sighing into the quiet.

Quite suddenly, there was a commotion in the hallway outside the mission room. Iruka sat up jerkily and straightened the papers before him, laying his pen primly across the top as the unknown shinobi approached the doorway. To his surprise - and oddly, joy - it was Kakashi, lugging a couple of plastic takeout bags with him.

He dropped the bags on the table right in front of Iruka, violently displacing the properly aligned papers and pen. Iruka was speechless.

"'S food." Kakashi announced, hands proudly on his hips. "You looked like you could use it."

Iruka frowned, and then, rather against his will, broke into a grateful smile. He had come to mission control directly from school, and so, aside from an apple at lunchtime, he'd had nothing more to eat. The food, while an odd gesture coming from Kakashi, was a welcome addition to his evening. He perked up at once, and began to undo the bags and cartons as Kakashi drug a folding chair over to the other side of the table.

"Itadakimasu." The copy nin murmured in a sing-song tone as he broke his chopsticks apart. Iruka followed suit, and for a moment, the two ate in silence.

Delicately chewing and swallowing his latest bite of noodles, Iruka glanced quizzically at his dining partner.

"So, Kakashi-san, when did you develop such an interest in my health?"

"I don't know." Kakashi answered matter-of-factly. He continued to eat rather quickly, sliding his mask off and slurping up noodles whenever Iruka glanced downward.

"Well..." Iruka replied a moment later, "I suppose I owe you for this."

"That's pretty true." Kakashi answered, glancing up with his mask in place. "You should probably take me to lunch tomorrow at noon."

The brunette was thoroughly taken aback, but then again, he didn't object.

* * *

Kakashi lay in bed a week or so later, pondering the numerous occasions he'd met Iruka for lunch - in an endless chain of 'owing' one another - and wondering precisely what it all amounted to.

The night was quiet. Crickets chirped lightly, and the rustling wings of a few night-flying birds promised the approach of spring. The moon shone brightly, unhindered by so much as a touch of cloud, accompanied by myriad sparkling stars. It would have been, Kakashi noted with an absent glance out his window, a lovely night for a walk...

Distracting himself was impossible. Fingers laced behind his head, he lay still and gazed up at the ceiling, contemplating the past few weeks.

Visiting with Iruka. Eating with Iruka. Talking with Iruka. Laughing with Iruka.

And it wasn't as if the fantasies had lessened at all. In fact, with the abnormal occupation of his mind by the teacher, more and more thoughts tended to lead him into contemplation of sweet cinnamon skin, soft chocolate-colored hair, gentle, thoughtful cacao eyes...

Kakashi's hand found its way to his sex, tenderly stroking the half-hard shaft as he imagined Iruka would. A warm tingle spread all through his body, rippling through the muscular plane of his stomach all the way into the well-toned chest, causing him to gasp lightly. His eyes drifted shut. All he could think of was how much warmer it would be if Iruka was really there.

* * *

Iruka blinked down at the papers stacked neatly in his hands. For once, it seemed, they were all graded, down to the last essay question and multiple choice section. It was difficult to believe he'd actually accomplished it, and moreover, documented it in his grade book. It had been such a long time since he'd found himself capable of such volumes of grading, and in such a short period, as well - after all, he'd taken a walk with Kakashi earlier that afternoon, ending with lunch at the barbeque restaurant so highly favored by the Ino-Shika-Chou trio.

In truth, he had never felt any particular affection for Kakashi previous to their growing interaction. The copy nin had always been a symbol of everything Iruka would never be during their childhood. They had existed in different worlds then: Iruka in the warm, sheltered care of his parents, and Kakashi in the cold, bloodstained chaos of ANBU service. Kakashi had only become anything more than a lethal shadow in the background of Iruka's young consciousness once the Kyuubi had taken his parents. In the burnt shambles of the following days, the brunette had seen him, young, lean and vigorous, working with the other ANBU to help the injured and clean the city up...

From then on, the two had once again drifted out of each other's lives. Only when Naruto had graduated into his three-man team did they meet again, and then, they conflicted.

Thus, Iruka couldn't make sense of Kakashi's new interest in him. At once he had decided it was pity, but then he had begun to catch glimpses of something other than smug indifference in Kakashi's disposition, an almost desperate craving for recognition of the difficulties of shinobi life that haunted all ninja.

Iruka yawned and tucked the papers away into his portfolio. The night was cool and breezy, full of the scents of cooking dinners and freshly blooming flowers.

* * *

"I just thought it'd be nice to get some fresh air. So what's it gonna be? You wanna come out and play or not, Iruka-sensei?" Kakashi stood outside the teacher's door, his hands thrust in his pockets as usual. Iruka frowned and turned slightly, leaving the door ajar.

"Let me get my vest." He replied. "You can come in."

Kakashi stepped inside and shut the door behind him, casually leaning in the entry hall as Iruka rushed off to find his chuunin vest. It was late afternoon, and the burnt-gold light fell beautifully through the open window of the neatly kept living room. Following the shimmering rays up the contours of perfectly clean chairs and a polished, organized coffee table, Kakashi began to note just how different his home was from Iruka's. While his apartment was scattered with mementos and photographs, Iruka had only a single picture - one of he and Naruto - settled on his mantle. Everything else looked as though it had been purchased only a few days ago, while each item in his own home was either dented, nicked, scratched, stained, torn or all of the above.

As Iruka strode from his room tugging his vest over one arm, it struck Kakashi that his apartment looked like something out of a magazine, just an arrangement put together for a photograph by disinterested assistants.

"You don't get many visitors, do you, Iruka-sensei?" He asked pointedly. By the hurt look which briefly washed over Iruka's face, he could tell that he had finally discovered the true root of the man's thinness and his timidity, his scarceness and yet the controlled joy he felt at merely being in the presence of others who even so much as spoke to him. It was more than a discovery. It was more than a mystery solved. It was an understanding.

"No I - I'm..." Iruka's speech faltered and finally died all together. He stood at the other end of the entry way, hands dangling limply at his sides, looking as though he'd been struck.

"I don't either, really." Kakashi offered, pushing himself off the wall to stand straight and face the brunette. Iruka looked away at once, in an attempt to hide his rapidly surfacing emotions.

"Don't be silly, Kakashi-san; you're very well-liked."

"So are you." The copy-nin responded, advancing toward the brunette.

"I thought...we established that I...that I don't get v-visitors." Iruka almost felt himself choke on the words as the stinging came to his sinuses. It felt unreal, as though such a thing couldn't possibly happen. Moreover, his face grew hot and flushed at the thought of having such an embarrassing reaction in front of Kakashi, who he had come to hold in such high regard.

"That doesn't mean that you're not well-liked, does it?" He murmured, having moved closer to Iruka than perhaps ever before. They stood mere inches apart; at that distance, Kakashi's height was proven easily superior to Iruka's.

"No one comes by." Was all that the chuunin could manage before turning his face away and tilting it down.

"You didn't specify the meaning of 'well-liked', then. I was under the impression that being liked dearly by one person was just as good as being liked a little bit by a whole lot of people."

For a moment, a brief, weak smile flickered over Iruka's lips.

"Naruto." He breathed.

"Yeah." Kakashi answered quietly. "Naruto makes two."

* * *

"Class dismissed." Iruka's smile beamed with all the strength of the sun outside and the presently ringing school bell. The pattering of feet and chattering of voices roared to life along with peals of fading laughter as the herd of students rushed out the open door.

He breathed in deeply as the room emptied, enjoying the blissfully fresh taste and scent of the springtime air flowing in through the open windows. Even though the frost of winter had just given way to the glistening sun and roiling storms of spring, the kids were already restless and bursting with excitement over their summer break. Iruka found himself unable to blame them. It would've been simple to chalk it all up to the heavy perfume in the rain-drenched air or the new sprigs of lively grass spreading over the ground, and yet he knew that was a mere symbol of the truth of the matter.

Iruka didn't know where he stood with Kakashi. Truthfully, he didn't mind: as long as the lunches, dinners and walks continued, he was content to let their relationship - whatever it was - remain as it was.

Humming lightly, the chuunin swept up all of the papers his students had piled on his desk and tucked them neatly into a paper clip for future grading. Satisfied that his own surface was organized, he strode in between the rows of students' desks, gathering up tissues, torn bits of construction paper, crayon wrappers and pencil shavings off of the floor and seats. After a particularly low dip, he stood with a slight wince and massaged the small of his back, noting absently that he was either older or taller than he used to be.

It was a fine visual for Kakashi to enter to.

"Oi, Iruka-sensei." He announced, a bit crestfallen that Iruka seemed to be finished with all of the bending over he planned to do that afternoon. The brunette spun around and smiled.

"Good afternoon, Kakashi-san."He replied, moving toward him. "No food today?"

"I'm pretty sure you're going to last now." The copy nin explained, seeming to wave off his past concern with an open palm.

"I fear you're going to start telling me I'm too fat soon." Iruka chuckled, dumping his handful of classroom garbage in the pail near the door. Arms crossed, he faced Kakashi with a raised brow and a light smile.

"Ha, not a chance." The elder man assured him. "Besides, if you did start porking up, all I'd have to do is stop showing up and you'd drop it all again, I expect."

Iruka dropped his hands to his hips and tipped his head back in a hearty laugh. It seemed almost musical to Kakashi, who found a genuine smile curling his lips up simply due to the sound.

"Big talk!" He grinned.

"Well then, let's walk." Kakashi replied lightly, welcoming Iruka to walk at his side. The teacher followed closely to him, carrying his portfolio beneath his arm. As they stepped into the sunshine, a brief battle ensued over the folder as Kakashi attempted to snatch it away from the teacher to 'helpfully critique' some of the drawings.

"Oh, this is horrible." Kakashi declared, holding one of the sheets high over Iruka's head. The shorter man jumped up to try and grab the paper, though he was no match for the agile copy nin. "What is this, anyway? Some sort of phallic symbol?"

"It's a kunai - er, I think - and give it back!" The brunette complained, leaping up to grasp at the work.

Kakashi was finally enticed into laughter as he released the sheet and watched Iruka stuff it back into the portfolio. Often, it was very difficult for him to feel any sort of genuine emotion at all. Smiles were forced, laughter was hollow, even sorrow was mostly feigned - Iruka seemed the only shinobi in Konoha capable of inspiring any real feeling in him.

"So." Iruka began, "What's for dinner tonight, Kakashi-san?"

"Unfortunately, I've got to train with the brats until nine." He replied glumly, kicking dusty pebbles out of his way as he strode along.

"Ah. Well...I suppose I was getting sort of tired of ramen anyhow." Iruka sighed, attempting to swiftly cover his incredible disappointment with his normal attitude. His whole core began to tremble, however, as the rejection set in. In short seconds, his scheming mind had time to come up with a thousand reasons Kakashi might lie to him in order to escape dining with him again, and as the elder man spoke, he was already coming up with an excuse to leave. Of course, he stopped at once.

"Same here. We should have dinner at someone's house tomorrow night."

Iruka gaped.

"Who - whose house?"

"Well, one of ours, obviously. I'm a far better killer than cook, so banking on the opposite in your case, I'd be willing to host if you'd be willing to serve up the grub."

The two had come to a stop outside the small park where Kakashi usually met his students. The sun had begun to sink low in the soft blue sky, spreading vibrant rays of golden light over the treetops thick with supple new leaves. With his back to the sunset, Kakashi's silvery hair seemed something like a bronze halo interrupted by his dark mask and hitai-ate. Iruka looked into his bare eye, sensing, on some unfathomable level, the same need in it that he himself felt.

"Whatever you get," Iruka replied softly, pressing a finger against the taller man's chest, "I can cook."

"I'll hold you to that." Kakashi breathed.

* * *

"Where are you headed off to so early?" Pakkun sat down near his dish and licked the last droplets of water from his chops as Kakashi tugged on his flak jacket in the living room.

"Shopping. Why?" He placed his hands on his hips and glanced skeptically down at the pug.

"You're just awfully chipper lately is all. It's weird."

"One could say you've been rather scarce, but I'm personally content to let you to your own business." The copy nin noted astutely.

"Now you're just talking nonsense." Pakkun grumbled, leaning back down into his water dish with a bristling of his short, soft fur.

"That so?" Kakashi asked, stepping past the hunched over dog to appraise the mostly barren refrigerator. As he had suspected, there was little more on his shelves save gritty, sticky stains and empty cartons of various past meals.

Pakkun, meanwhile, simply grunted, earning another cursory glance from Kakashi.

"I'm just saying, you seem to be spending a lot of time with that Inuzuka girl." The masked shinobi remarked as he stepped away and shut the refrigerator. He was certain he heard his little companion choke on a mouthful of water before scoffing disdainfully at the suggestion.

"That silly fluff ball?" He sneered, sitting back on his haunches to regard Kakashi. "She's - I mean she's - she's a fool."

"I thought she was sort of pretty." The silver haired man replied passively, stretching to open the cabinets above his small stove. Once more, he found them completely bereft of contents, save for a packet of dusty old toothpicks.

"Ha!" Pakkun grunted. "Pretty! Always prancing around with those silly flowers in her collar, and asking me to play..." He raised a hind foot to scratch his ear, and then shot a sharp glance at Kakashi. "You're not implying that I like her or something, I hope."

Kakashi shut the cupboard doors and turned toward the dog with open palms.

"Not at all. I'm just saying..." He tucked his wallet into his pocket and moved toward the entry way, passing his companion once more with a careful stride.

"You've been out a lot yourself lately - with that teacher, I might add." Pakkun's little nails clicked on the linoleum tiles as he followed Kakashi to the front door.

"Yeah, so?" Kakashi asked, glancing down at the brown pug tottering around his feet. "And just where are you going?"

"Well, you said you're shopping, and I have a couple of things to pick up, so I thought I'd come along." Large brown eyes regarded him as he opened the door, admitting bright rays of morning sunshine into the dim apartment.

"Oh yeah? What do you need?" He stepped out and shut the door gently behind them, inhaling the fresh air with a contended smile.

"Flowers." Pakkun grumbled.

"Just as I suspected."

* * *

"I'll start working on the fish - ah, I should wash my hands first."

Kakashi moved aside at the small sink to allow Iruka access to the faucet, but the brunette shook his head with a bright smile.

"Naa, Kakashi, I can't wash them there! The soap would get all over the vegetables."

The copy nin was suddenly reminded that he was, in fact, in the process of rinsing a good quantity of sliced mushrooms, carrots and broccoli. Previously, he had been more focused on other matters, such as attempting to splash Iruka as frequently as possible.

"Ah, that's right. Bathroom's over there." He gestured with a tilt of his head, and Iruka nodded gratefully before rushing off.

Kakashi's apartment, the brunette found, wasn't at all as barren as he'd always secretly suspected it would be. In fact, it was practically strewn with snapshots and souvenirs, adorable mementos and post-cards from friends. Then again, those personal reminders were practically the extent of the decoration. Iruka somehow envied the coziness of the atmosphere, though it was far less aesthetically pleasing than his own carefully planned, impersonal decoration.

The small bathroom was little different, albeit a bit messier. The tiles of the shower seemed to be wanting for cleaning, and a dark red ring surrounded the drain of the tub. The stainless steel faucet hardly lived up to its name due to the dark blotches of discoloration and flecks of some unknown brownish substance gathered around its base. In fact, the flecks and stains of reddish brown seemed to be everywhere: some littered the walls, the floor, the grout, the knobs of the sink...Iruka leaned forward to investigate the odd phenomenon, and then at once drew back.

Blood.

A slight gasp escaped his lips before he could cover his mouth and pull abruptly away from the sink. Some of the stains were darker than others, and all varied in size, pointing to the idea that the filth had built up over time, possibly Kakashi's entire life. It was then, beneath the dim, humming florescent lights that Iruka first deeply understood the blankness that sometimes lurked beneath the light-hearted expression in Kakashi's eyes, the lethal grace that marked all his sudden movements, and the distant darkness that his face took on when he believed no one was observing him.

Ironically, Iruka was not aware that he himself was being observed.

Presently, however, he whirled around to find Kakashi staring directly at him. Some emotion the brunette couldn't quite pinpoint flickered dangerously across the cold darkness of the man's visible eye. In the silence that followed he simply stood, lips parting and closing again, unable to explain himself.

"Disgusting, isn't it?" Kakashi finally muttered, his voice tinged with ice. Iruka could quite easily discern that the copy nin was not simply referring to the bloody stains.

"We all - do what we have to, Kakashi." Iruka replied shakily. Still, he stood his ground and refused to allow himself to tremble; somehow, he knew that displaying his uncertainty would hurt the elder man in ways he was perhaps otherwise incapable of comprehending.

"I don't have to." The taller man replied, as if challenging Iruka to prove him wrong. After years of attempting to prove himself wrong on that very point, he had come to an empty failure. The schoolteacher, however, was firmer in his resolve, though his hands shook the slightest bit.

"Someone's got to." He meekly intoned, barely able to meet Kakashi's fierce gaze. "I - I c-couldn't do it." At once he found himself forcing his feet to stay planted in place, though he felt as though he were falling.

"Someone's got to what, Iruka?" Kakashi hissed, his jaw clenching tensely. "Kill for a living?"

"To watch - to watch over all of us." Iruka replied briefly, willing himself with all of his ability not to wince as the taller man advanced quite near to him, putting them almost toe-to-toe. "It's not - oh, Kakashi...It's not easy, I know that, oh...I know that, but...the Hokage chooses the important ones, and if it wasn't right, then it still isn't...isn't your fault..."

Finally, he broke their gaze, and as his eyes brimmed quickly with tears. A long stretch of silence followed that seemed like years to the chuunin. Kakashi, in a sense, felt a clearing after the reeling passed - a sort of realization, an acceptance, a vast hurricane of emotions and thoughts too long pent up and denied to be sorted as they tumbled out. However, once all of the chaos in his mind had settled, one thought remained: he was Iruka's protector. Naruto's as well, and Sasuke's, Sakura's...Anyone within the gates.

For the first time in more than a decade, Iruka felt strong arms surround him. At first he had no idea how to react - he didn't even throw his arms up in the ingrained defensive position. Instead, he simply felt his body seem to float up as he was pressed against a warm, hard body, held around his slender waist and narrow shoulders. Half-crying, heart-pounding, he wrapped his own arms around the taller man, and pressed his face into the muscular plane of his chest.

The embrace was long, warm, close.

* * *

He had understood.

But perhaps not.

Lightning flashed brilliantly in the nicked silver plates pulled tightly across the backs of pale hands. Kakashi glanced briefly out the window. A storm furiously pounded Konohakagure, but naturally, a spring thunderstorm was no excuse for a mission cancellation. Thus, he tugged on his gear in the darkness of his apartment, having already shipped Pakkun off for a weekend with the Inuzuka family. Thunder threatened to shatter the world outside his rattling window, accompanied by lashes of white-hot lightning that rent the sky.

With his jaw firmly tightened and his sculpted lips set in a thin line, Kakashi slid his mask over the bridge of his nose, securing that last vestige of his identity he claimed as his own, as not a killer's. Earlier in the month, during their first home dinner together, Iruka had seemed to understand the dilema, the thin line that Kakashi constantly walked between endless guilt and noble acceptance of his burden. Still, however, he felt as though he had reserved something from the man which he rightfully deserved to know if they were going to be - intimate.

The word sent shivers up Kakashi's spine.

Kakashi stared into the rain. He had to expose the last bit of himself to Iruka, to offer the truth and nothing less, to give him one last chance to back out before it was too late. White lightning flashed against the colored discs of his eyes, lighting them weirdly and playing in odd shadows and highlights in his silver hair. The footlocker was empty. The armor was on.

He moved into the night.

Water streamed down over the armor and through the thin layers of cloth beneath it, soaking Kakashi's flesh. His hard musculature was outlined in perfect contour, corded and vigorous from frequent and intense training. Already, he could feel his casual gait slip into a lethal stalk; similarly, his characteristic slouch rapidly transformed into a drawn up, aggressive posture as familiar tension built between his shoulder blades. The soles of his sandals settled on the surface of the rushing runoff and thin mud, held aloft by concentrated chakra. The energy coursed hotly through his veins, pounding in preparation for the impending meeting, and the slaughter that would follow mere moments after his departure.

It had to be done. It had to be done. It had to be done. The phrase pulsed with the quickened rhythm of his heart.

Lightning flashed in the pattern of human veins, all branches and tenuous streaks of white. Rain continued to fall in harsh, icy sheets. Thunder shook the firmament of the earth with every rolling peals.

Kakashi arrived at the schoolhouse.

Inside, Iruka gasped as a particularly violent streak of lightning left the school bereft of electricity. His attention was torn abruptly from his grading as the florescent lights blinked out, leaving the empty room almost completely dark. After a moment of settling his shock and hastened pulse, he stood and leaned down, sliding a desk drawer open to fish out his emergency flashlight. However, just as his slim fingers settled on the cool metal, a noise at the far end of the classroom caused him to straighten at once.

Iruka was frozen in fear as a light scraping noise accompanied the deft opening of a window. Rain splashed onto the hardwood floor and the noise of the storm outside intensified. Slowly, gracefully, a hard, athletic figure slid through the open window, dropping silently onto the ground. Rising from his crouch, Kakashi stood at full height and observed Iruka for a moment before wordlessly stalking toward him.

The brunette's knees grew increasingly weak as the elder nin advanced on him. Lightning once more split the black, roiling sky, turning Kakashi's exposed eyes a carnal red and ghostly blue. Eerie shadows fell across the planes of his glistening face and body, casting him in an unearthly glow. Quietly, his lips still parted in shock, Iruka sat down, his sweating, trembling palms flat on his desk. Kakashi's purpose was unknown to him; his presence permeated the darkened room.

It seemed to Iruka that long, breathless minutes passed before Kakashi reached the desk. With a swift, perfect motion, the copy nin leapt onto the surface of the desk and landed in an adroit crouch. Every muscle in his firm body pulled taut and tense, straining beneath his pale flesh as he moved a nimble hand toward his face.

Iruka attempted to speak, and yet his words died in his throat. He managed only a light gasp, hypnotized by the elder man's inexplicable actions.

In one smooth motion, Kakashi slid his mask down, letting it fall around his neck.

Soft, dark eyes widened with immediate shock as they fell upon the bared image of pale, full, smooth lips, the contours of high cheekbones, and the perfect lines of an angular chin.

Kakashi could think nothing save 'here I am.' Before Iruka, he was entirely exposed: the mask shed, the garb on, the sharingan shining weirdly in the erratic lightning.

Killer. Demon. Copy-nin.

"Kakashi..." Iruka finally breathed. His tender, pink tongue touched his dry lips as he leaned forward, half believing he was dreaming.

It was all the assurance Kakashi needed.

With hardly a beath, he closed the distance between them. Sculpted, pale lips met full ones, pressing urgently into the heat of the other's mouth. Iruka's entire body began to tingle at the contact, entering into a dreamy state of pure sensuality. Save for Kakashi, the entire world stopped as the other cupped his cheek, encouraging him to part his lips and deepen the kiss. Iruka drew in a gasp as Kakashi's slick tongue ran across his lip, leaving a trail of sheer stimulation in its path. His core trembled as that same tongue met with his, touching and caressing as Kakashi began a passionate rhythm of movement. A shy moan escaped him as the jounin broke for a moment to breathe hotly against his lips, pressing their foreheads together as each attempted to catch their breath. Pale fingers brushed whisps of dark hair, drawing forth further sounds of intimate pleasure.

"Oh...Kakashi." Iruka breathed, reaching up to cover the pale hand with his own.

"Iruka." The copy nin replied, closing his eyes in relief. "I...I have to go."

Iruka winced. "When will you be back?"

"Soon." Kakashi assured him.

"Not soon enough."

Kakashi felt that nothing in the world, save perhaps his love, was more true than that.

* * *

**Haha, wow. Going through and breaking these sections up, I realized how completely fucking absurd this piece was without the breaks. Thanks again to those who read and enjoyed when it was a mess - you guys are saintly!**


	4. Flow

The hours that lay behind Kakashi had seen the evening storm weaken to a thin rain, three wanted shinobi of Lightning country terminated, and fifty-four miles of soaked, muddy terrain crossed on foot. Though obscured by thick layers of heavy clouds, the moon had risen high in the night sky by the time the elite ANBU cell began to set up camp.

Nights among the ANBU all seemed strikingly similar to Kakashi, as though mandated by some arcane fiat. First, the area was scouted for traps, which, on that particular evening, meant sifting through trenches of mud and piles of rotting, water-logged leaves before leaping into the canopies of the trees to inspect each dripping branch. Secondly, the canvas tents were constructed on the most level ground available; such was hardly manageable given the marsh-like state of the ground. Lastly, shifts consisting of two-hour increments were decided upon by some decisive mechanism, be it drawing straws, calling, or rock-paper-scissors.

First shift was always coveted: at the start of the night, one had enough adrenaline still rushing about in their body to remain comfortably awake for two hours, and it was quite enticing to have en entire night's sleep as opposed to interrupted slumber. Second shift was hated only slightly less than third, as both called for an agonizing interruption of vital sleep, and an unfortunate necessity for the utmost vigilance in the deepest dark of the night. Fourth shift was regarded merely as a nuisance - it simply meant waking up early.

Kakashi was rarely picky about which shift he served. Periodically, when his body ached little from the mission and mostly from his need, he asked specifically for second or third shift simply so he could be among the other ANBU as they settled into their tents. There, in the lightless quiet, they would roughly tear off the constricting armor and force down the cloth under layers to grasp at one anothers' genitals, stroking out hollow climaxes and occasionally engaging in outright intercourse.

No name was given to the practice, though it was entirely endemic and well understood. There were unspoken rules: the masks always stayed on; no names were spoken; the encounters were never to be discussed; things were to be kept fast and quiet. Some of the most unsatisfactory sexual events in Kakashi's life had taken place within the confines of those rules and those tents. Sometimes, as he passed through the sunny streets of Konoha, he would catch the glance of a comrade and find himself holding it for a little longer than usual, looking a little deeper than necessary as he wondered if they had been last week's conquest.

Yet it all went unspoken in that way. Kakashi simply thought of it as 'fucking'. He wasn't at all interested in knowing what the others thought of it, especially on that night.

As he fished his meager rations out of his backpack, the others bickered over shift assignments. He, however, remained entirely silent, fearing that speech would somehow rob him of the taste that still lingered lightly on his lips, sweet and addictive and intoxicating. The mask, it seemed to him, was becoming more functional by the moment: not only had it protected his skin from a sound chapping due to the cold wind and rain, but it had also retained the scent and taste of Iruka, keeping the image of the brunette alive and constant in Kakashi's mind. At the start of the mission, he had worried that the brief burst of euphoria and the resulting possibilities that flooded his consciousness would cloud his judgement and compromise his performance. Yet, Iruka's presence in his thoughts had quite the opposite effect: for once, Kakashi sensed a purpose behind the mission.

Mud began to seep through his pants as he knelt on the ground. Rain had begun to fall heavily again, turning the loose earth into runny masses of slippery sludge. Kakashi grimaced as the cold filth penetrated his sandals as well, causing an uncomfortable film to develop on his feet. As the arguments over shifts died down, he swiftly tugged his mask outward to devour the bits of dried fruits and nuts he had concealed in his pack, downing them quickly with a few gulps of water. He adjusted his mask back into place and stood as the others approached.

"We've got first shift." The man in the fox mask gestured to his dog-masked companion, who nodded resolutely.

"Me and you got second, buddy." The rather disappointed shinobi hidden behind the cat mask sighed. Kakashi nodded, though the idea didn't particularly appeal to him. It wasn't an issue of sleep or energy - after his meeting with Iruka, he felt as though he could stay awake for days. It was a matter of the nature of the tents during first shift - the groping, the grasping, the heat, the desperation.

He wanted no part of it.

"We'll head out at six." The fox-masked man announced. He jutted a thumb over his shoulder, in the direction they were to travel the following morning. "Three down tonight. Other two should be about twenty miles north of here, near the old outpost. If we can get 'em by eight tomorrow, we'll have this shit wrapped up and be back in Konoha by tomorrow night. Got it?"

Mumbled noises of assent followed, and the first-shift sentries each moved to high branches to take up watch.

Kakashi pressed his concealed lips tightly together as he took to his knees to crawl into one of the tents. Rain coursed down the canvas covering; leaks began to emerge from great soaked spots near the corners and seams. The ground beneath him gave slightly as he drew his knees up to his body and pressed his shoulders against the flimsy flooring. After a moment of resting his head, he began to realize just how much his body ached: while tight tension lingered in every muscle, he suspected he had pulled something in his left calf due to inadequate stretching before beginning the trek; his sinuses burned from breathing in the cold air; fatigue weighed on him like a heavy shroud; a chakra-string wound sustained in the earlier scuffle stung from the introduction of mud, rain, and cloth fibers. Still, the thought of being with Iruka in a mere matter of hours seemed to dull the pain to a low hum throbbing just beneath his thoughts...

The realization that he had begun to fall asleep only set in when a rudely questing hand settled abruptly between his legs. The feeling of those anonymous fingers roughly massaging his sex caused immediate nausea to develop in the pit of his stomach, and he snapped his legs together as he scrambled to deter his unknown teammate.

"Hard to get, huh?" The other man snickered, forcing his hand back between Kakashi's thighs.

Scowling and rather irritated, Kakashi grasped his wrist and then pushed him away, growling 'no'.

"Aw, come on." The masked man drawled. "Whassamatter? Got a girl back home? Nobody has to know." As he drew closer, Kakashi slipped a kunai out of his hip pouch.

When the hand settled on the underside of his thigh, he simply reached up, removed his ANBU mask, and clearly brandished the kunai.

"I said no." He stated flatly, though the threat was clearly stated. At once the other man drew back as though he'd been burnt, curling defensively with his well-armored back to the copy nin.

Satisfied, Kakashi slid his mask back on with a sigh, and lowered his head to the ground. With the kunai still loosely grasped, he crossed his arms over his chest, and listened to the falling rain, waiting for his shift to begin and end, for the sun to rise, for the day to pass, for the night to come, and to finally be with Iruka.

* * *

After the kiss, Iruka had remained seated in shock for a few short moments, hardly minding the raging storm or the darkness of the school building. When the haze in his mind lifted, all he could feel was a nearly unbearable lightness in his heart, a fluttering, euphoric feeling that quickened his breath and brought tears to his eyes. Never before had he felt such a strong desire to be held, to be touched, to be encompassed in the presence of a single person. His need for Kakashi burned brightly within him, and as he haphazardly gathered his things into his portfolio, he prayed to any God that cared to listen for Kakashi's safety and swift return.

Portfolio tucked beneath his arm, he strode through the door of his room, feeling inordinately unburdened by the darkness. Without the lights to worry about, he could simply walk out of the building, right through the doors, moving without a second glance into the world of water and slush outside.

As a matter of fact, he almost did just that.

However, a certain obstacle blocked his path as he headed toward the metal double-doors at the end of the main corridor: the old janitor and his rusty bucket of varios cleaning liquids and instruments. Iruka stopped just short of the man, coming to an abrupt halt only a few inches from him. Through either age, habit or the demands of his occupation, the man had a slumped posture that kept his face almost eternally obscured. Thus, Iruka had rarely seen the deep brown eyes that presently met his, nor the heavily entrenched lines that curved into the softest shades of happiness as the elderly custodian held their gaze.

"It's good to see you in such a rush." He said. The voice was rugged and tired, but tinged with gentle, paternal affection. At once, Iruka felt as though he'd known the man for years - and in a way, he had. Since he had begun to teach, the squeaking bucket and shuffling feet had been his only companions on those otherwise unbearably silent nights.

"I'm sorry I - I nearly trampled you." Iruka returned his kind smile, thanking the man for his subtle company. The janitor merely chuckled lightly and moved aside, nodding his typical good-bye. Iruka responded with his customary wave, and continued on his way, heart light, mind racing.

* * *

Eight had been a gross underestimation for the completion time of the mission.

At six, Kakashi had been awake and ready to move out, albeit a bit sore from a night of broken sleep on muddy ground.

At seven, Kakashi had been cursing early spring rainstorms due to the mud that seemed to mire down his teammates at frequent intervals.

At eight, Kakashi and the rest of the ANBU squadron had reached the old outpost that was suspected to be the lair of the last two Lightning country targets.

At nine, Kakashi was still engaged in battle with the sixteen Lightning shinobi that, while present at the outpost, had been excluded from the mission description.

He assessed the situation with cold speed. Sixteen - fifteen, due to a well-thrown kunai - shinobi in a circular enclosure, the mission control center of the old outpost; their main tactics consisted of common weapons usage, hand-to-hand combat and weak seals. It wasn't particularly difficult to oppose them: he had taken quite a few senbon and kunai in his day. However, it was impossible to tell, among the flashes of silver and glinting of grey, which tip might just be poisoned, and which might just hit the one weak spot in one's armor. They seemed to be banking on probability, he noted, simply throwing as much as they could and hoping that the movement of the over-alert ANBU crew would help secure hits.

As he dodged a senbon to the neck and felt the edge of a kunai graze his thigh, he decided that it would not be entirely out of line to utilize chidori. True, the move was much more than enough to slay fifteen relatively unskilled shinobi, and it sapped quite a bit of chakra. However, it would finish things quickly if executed correctly, and vindicate the one ANBU member who had already lost his life due to a vicious, artery-rending slice to his groin via windmill shuriken.

Kakashi ducked slightly to protect his neck for the split seconds he'd be busy with his scroll. The sheet unfurled nearly effortlessly, and he marked it with the necessary blood mark in the same seamless movement. His arm guard deflected a few senbon with a deceptively small amount of sound; still, trenches were dug into the metal from the sheer force behind the sharp tips. Kakashi's adept hands flew through the summoning seals as the other ANBU held off the ever decreasing number of Lightning shinobi. In a cloud of smoke, the copy nin's dogs sprang forward with their snouts drawn up into fierce snarls.

"Round them up!" Kakashi hissed, and at once, the pack responded, charging forward in a rush of angry barking and sharp howls. The element of surprise and the primal response of all humans to dangerous animals gave Kakashi exactly the time he needed to work up his chakra into a crackling ball of white-hot energy amassed at his left hand. Privy to his plan at the sight of the signature attack, the remaining ANBU made swift last efforts at herding the Lightning shinobi into one general location before quickly darting to locations of relative safety.

The nin dogs each disappeared into nothingness before Kakashi landed the attack.

White light exploded to the sound of thousands of screaming birds. In that single, violent flash, most of the Lightning shinobi met their ends in a fiery hell, dying either of the crushing force of the energy, the resultant destruction to the wooden beams and cement pillars around them, the furious heat of the electricity, or some combination thereof. When the air again cleared enough to allow slight visibility, all that remained of those who had borne the brunt of the jutsu were smears of black, burnt blood caked on the charred cement, strips of intestine splashed against the cracked walls, fragments of bone and heavy, foul-smelling smoke.

Kakashi cradled his left hand in his right as he observed the carnage, pleased with the range of that particular execution. Wincing behind their masks due to the disgusting scent of torched flesh and scorched hair, the other ANBU made short work of surveying the dog tags of those killed.

"Got 'em." The man in the fox mask declared. "That's it; this makes all five from the mission. Got 'em."

"Should we chase 'em?" Another inquired, plucking out the four senbon lodged in his upper-arm.

"No point." Kakashi replied flatly.

"It's either doing it now or later." The same anxious fellow replied, gazing off in the direction the others had escaped in.

"Precisely." The copy nin answered. An uncomfortable silence passed between all of them as Kakashi slipped off left vambrace and plated, fingerless gauntlet to assess the damage done to his wrist and hand. There was a bit of light burning; nothing serious by his standards. Still, there was a residual tingling that lingered about in his veins, and a slight numbness just near the center of his palm. Frowning, he reapplied the armor and glanced upward.

"We'll deal with that mission when it comes."

If the others thought it was a bad idea, they certainly never voiced such.

* * *

In the wake of the rain, only a persistent mist remained, a mere ghost of the previous night's storm. It had hung over Konohakagure throughout the day, thinning slightly at noon only to thicken once more as the moon rose up over the hidden village. At first, Iruka had been perturbed by the sudden quiet, feeling quite bereft in the absence of the sounds of rain rushing along his windowpanes or thunder splitting the night sky. For a moment around dusk, he felt as though the terrible silence might be relieved by the sudden wind that had picked up. Yet the noises and motions he felt so empty without were not those of the storms, and within his heart, he was well aware of that.

Slowly, the minutes of the day passed. Iruka was haunted by a nagging sensation of uselessness, and a sharp anxiety concerning Kakashi's safety that responded to no logic or attempts at supression. Under such conditions, having breakfast was nearly impossible - Iruka only managed to slice an apple and nibble at it briefly before feeling the distinct onset of nausea. The only thing that seemed to be in his favor was the fact that Kakashi's mission had fallen on a weekend, which saved the children of the ninja academy from dealing with an intensely distracted and nervous sensei.

The morning hours were marked by the first traces of that thick, white fog. Iruka considered going out upon waking, possibly to tend to Kakashi's apartment or get a little shopping done or anything to take his mind away from its endless worrying. However, he simply found himself curled on his couch draped in his favorite robe, chewing alternately on his still tingling lip and little bits of sliced apple, brows knit in concern. Somewhere, he knew, Kakashi was suffering for the sake of Konohakagure, and yet he was wrapped in comfortable terrycloth, doing absolutely nothing for the copy nin, the village nor anybody else.

At that point, frustrated by his relative uselessness, Iruka decided to grade all of the papers present in his heavily stuffed portfolio, deciding that educating the future nin of Konoha was his only worthy contribution. It seemed like a good idea in theory. However, even with a cup of hot tea, a red pen equipped with a soft grip and each stack of work meticulously organized, the teacher found himself unable to concentrate on a single question. Each letter simply morphed into another train of thought that lead directly to Kakashi, and then off into the dark world of worries and nightmares.

'He's been on more dangerous missions and made it out absolutely unharmed.' Unfortunately, even that self-assurance was not enough to allow any lunch to stay down. Even though the fog outside had lessened somewhat, Iruka still felt incredibly oppressed, and thus found his body totally devoid of hunger far past lunch time. For the sake of good health, he tried to force a little rice and some vegetables into his system, but it all came up in a rather unpleasant mixture.

Following that painful episode, he showered, cleaned his bathroom a few times over, and then settled back onto the couch feeling impossibly drained but incapable of sleeping.

Most of the afternoon passed that way, in intervals of cleaning, attempts at grading, resting uncomfortably and feebly endeavoring to watch a little television. For the most part, Iruka stayed in motion, switching from one half-completed activity to the next with the erratic current of his anxious mind. In fact, the only things that remained constant among the imaginary scenarios of ill fortune were the hopes for Kakashi's return, the ardent wishes for his safety, and the blush-inducing memory of his kiss.

By the time night fell, he had managed to convince himself that Kakashi would be thoroughly displeased if he looked emaciated upon his return, and thus he made a light, bland meal. Two slices of toasted wheat bread, a small serving of steamed rice, and a half of a banana were all he could consume before feeling uncomfortably full. As the mist outside once more became opaque, Iruka carefully went about preparations for bed, taking every step slowly in case the copy nin were suddenly to return. Somehow, sleeping felt incredibly hopeless to him, as though the night made all the difference between Kakashi's survival and demise. Still, he checked the lock on his door, made sure all appliances were turned off, watered the tiny potted plants he kept on his windowsill, brushed his teeth, and turned back the covers of his well-kept bed. As he lay down in his light pajamas, he felt momentarily frustrated with himself for having showered earlier, wishing he had an excuse to do so again, if only to take up time.

As the night progressed, he fell uneasily into a dreamless sleep.

However, it didn't last particularly long.

Kakashi's heart had begun to feel inexplicably warm near the gates of Konoha, but by the time he was balanced on the convenient tree branch stationed near Iruka's bedroom window, his entire chest felt consumed with the ever-spreading heat. He realized that it wasn't very polite to pick the lock on the window of one's lover in order to sneak into their room as they slept, but with the image of the teacher so peaceful and beautiful just a few yards from him, it was difficult to yield to decorum. Halfway through the process, however, he realized that his intentions with Iruka - for that night, anyhow - were unclear even to himself. He was practically dripping with blood (most of it foreign) and had a few slight wounds of his own.

Before considering anything else, he supposed he needed a shower.

After easing the glass pane up gently with his fingertips, he slid inside, and at once shut it behind him. Iruka's reflexes were not as sharp as they had once been, but he still managed to muster a half-convincing look of awareness as Kakashi stood fully, framed in silhouette by the white mist glowing in the air outside.

"Ka-kakashi." Iruka gasped, his body shaking slightly as he threw his legs over the side of the bed in a scramble to rise to his feet.

"I'm back." The copy nin stated flatly. At once, however, he regretted using his typical dull tone. He was tired of the duality of his being - killer and apathetic loner. There was something, he realized, that remained in between the two personas, and was fundamentally greater than the others on all levels. That was the part of him that Iruka had managed to access, and in his presence, Kakashi felt free to bare it.

"I'll - I'll - I'll go - go make - tea, or do you - do you need anything - I have - I have -"

Kakashi hushed Iruka with a wave of his hand.

"Tea would be appreciated." He replied smoothly, pulling the mask off over his head. There, Iruka became one of the few living people to have seen the sharingan twice. Nodding rapidly, he rushed off to prepare tea to the best of his ability despite his trembling hands. Relief washed through him, bringing that familiar warmth on its tide.

From the kitchen, he heard his shower begin to run.

The cold tile only intensified the shivers coursing up and down Iruka's spine, and the warmth of the tea kettle did little to alleviate them. He rested his fingertips lightly against the smooth glass of the heated container, breathing deeply, seeking some semblance of calm. A glance over his shoulder yielded a rather surprising view: the door to the bathroom was slightly ajar; the weak light within drifted out, reflected in soft clouds of rolling steam. The first thought that came to him as his eyes fixed on the single flow of light across the dark apartment was 'Kakashi must surely want his tea.' Still, he knew better, and at once, as he poured the finished tea into small ceramic cups, he decided to accept it. The tea was ancillary; what Kakashi wanted was him. A tightness settled over his chest and his world spun slightly as he pondered the idea, and yet he wanted it, needed it.

Kakashi, meanwhile, was engaging in an old habit: standing directly in the searing stream of a shower head in full ANBU garb, watching the current turn red-brown before spiralling down the drain. Thoroughly soaked, he began to strip his armor off, starting with the pieces on his arms, hands, and then the breastplate, leaving it all in a heap like shed skin. The skin-tight black shirt followed, revealing his entire upper body and face. Immediately he began to inventory the little nicks and deeper lacerations lacing his finely muscled abdomen and pectorals, running his fingers over the stinging wounds. By the time Iruka knocked politely on the open door and settled the tea tray on the bathroom counter top, Kakashi was entirely nude, leaning against the far wall of the shower, allowing the hot water to rush over all the planes and angles of his body.

Wordlessly, with his back turned to the open shower stall, Iruka removed his first aid kit from the mirrored cupboard. Kakashi watched him with unveiled interest, though his posture went unaltered. When the chuunin turned, he found himself almost unable to move, to speak. His trembling hands grasped the counter behind him, and for long moments, he said nothing. Intense brown eyes searched all over the copy nin's body, somewhat shamefully, though encouraged ever so slightly by the obvious display.

The sharp, jutting hips. The hardness of him - of every inch of him. The muscular abdominal plane, the lean sculpture of his shoulders and the perfect contours of his face. All of that silver hair, soaked and clinging to his pale skin in streaks of stormy color. The only imperfections present were those angry red slashes, bright and sinister against the white of his flesh.

With an honest timidity about his careful gestures, Iruka slid his shirt up over his head, revealing blush-stained, deeply tanned skin. His form was toned, though it had obviously been years since it had been exposed to vigorous exercise, and thus his muscles were shaped in the fashion of youthful smoothness as opposed to Kakashi's battle-hardened physique. Kakashi's eyes locked on the slightly obscured face of the chuunin as he tugged his hair tie out, allowing the soft brown locks to spill down his narrow shoulders and elegant neck. There was something incredibly arousing to the jounin about watching the man loosen his hair, as if the revelation was on par with the removal of his own mask. Even as Iruka slipped his pajama pants down his slim hips and willowy legs, Kakashi remained ever focused on his face, presently framed with chestnut colored tresses.

Taking a deep breath, Iruka stepped into the shower, doing his best to avoid the copy nin's gaze. He felt as though he would faint if he didn't keep moving, so at once he pressed his fingertips against the pale flesh of Kakashi's abdomen, brushing near the widest of the cuts. Kakashi flinched slightly, but not from the pain; Iruka looked on in purest amazement as gooseflesh arose near the copy nin's shoulders and arms. He blinked up at Kakashi in wonder, dark eyes wide and shining as his breath quickened.

"You must be tired." Iruka breathed, nibbling his bottom lip lightly. "Let me - let me dress these." As he spoke, his fingers trailed downward, passing over the hard ridges of Kakashi's abs and over the angle of his hip, finally coming to rest teasingly on the senbon-graze still marring his thigh. Touching Kakashi in that way, he felt as though he was floating away, as if he would, at any moment, become only a ghost of himself and live the entire experience outside his own consciousness.

Kakashi's hand on his shoulder brought him abruptly back to his senses. The warmth of the man's slightly rough palm slid to his neck, played in the soaked strands for a moment as the warm water poured down between them, and then moved lower to cradle the small of Iruka's back. All sound seemed to mute to the brunette as Kakashi brought his free hand up to his face, cupping his cheek for a moment before tangling gingerly in his hair. Before he could so much as gasp, the jounin pressed their bodies together, and engaged Iruka in a tender kiss.

It was nothing like before. In the place of urgency and desperation, there was passion tempered with a previously unknown gentleness. Held in that way, Iruka readily parted his lips, and draped his arms over Kakashi's shoulders, surrendering the last bit of apprehension. Killer, demon, copy nin - whatever Kakashi was outside of that moment didn't matter in the least to the chuunin; in that place, he was, above all else, the man he loved. The warm, sensual embrace only broke when Iruka sensed Kakashi's growing arousal pressing against him, and let out a rather sharp cry in response. When he again found the jounin's gaze, he was met with two rather wide eyes.

"Iruka...Are you - alright?" The taller man inquired, brushing strands of hair away from the other's temple.

"I just - I just - I've never - done this before." He admitted, proving that even the richest of skin tones could turn bright red given the right incentive.

"With a man?" Kakashi asked gently, dispiritedly surveying the brunette's obvious discomfort.

"With anyone." Iruka replied, lowering his gaze to the floor. At once, Kakashi raked his fingers through those long, dark tresses, and kissed Iruka's lips once more.

"Do you want to?"

"Can you? You're - hurt..." Again, those soft fingertips grazed near the various lacerations lacing the elder shinobi's pale skin.

"I think I'll make it out of this one." Kakashi laughed lightly, smiling the most genuine smile Iruka believed he had ever seen. It was contagious, it seemed, and within the second, their lips had met again. Kakashi's hand drew away from the small of Iruka's back for a moment, and the water shut off. The jounin held him close then, and briefly leaned out of the stall to pull a towel off of the wall-mounted rack. He draped it around his lover's quivering shoulders and pressed it against his skin, drying him lightly before stealing it away for himself. Once he was satisfied with their relative dryness, he followed the chuunin out of the shower, and downed one of the cups of tea left forgotten on the counter as Iruka rifled through the first aid kit. Before leaving the bathroom, Kakashi scooped his hip pouch off of the floor, taking it along as he followed the chuunin to his bed.

Iruka climbed into bed and took to his knees, and then patted the space beside him as he briefly scanned the back of the ointment tube he'd chosen. Kakashi obediently sat down beside him, grinning a bit as he observed the teacher's nurturing nature. It was endearing, and moreover, provided evidence of a vital truth - that the brunette loved Kakashi, and through his recognition of his humanity, accepted, without disgust or disbelief, his vulnerability. True, the wounds were a very far cry from serious, but the fact that they concerned Iruka all the same was all the more charming to the copy nin.

Little by little, Iruka applied the clear salve to each wound, making sure that not a single one went without being tended to. When he was finished, he placed the small container on his night table, and turned to face Kakashi, biting at his lips again. In those dark eyes, the jounin could easily discern all manner of anxieties; the worries swimming there were mirrored in his fidgeting, and his sudden inability to hold eye contact. At once, Kakashi decided to alleviate that insecurity.

"Lay back." He said quietly, running an open palm up a smooth, bare thigh. Blushing brightly and trembling from such maddening sensation so near his sex, Iruka obeyed. Once reclined fully, the brunette drew his legs toward himself, attempting to obscure his delicate regions out of sheer instinct. However, Kakashi gently urged the man to part his legs by opening his knees slightly, and then caressing his inner thighs with attentive fingertips.

"Oh -! Kakashi...!" Iruka's hips arched abruptly as Kakashi's questing fingers circled the base of his arousal. In all of his nights alone, he had never felt so very alive, so very - sensitive. Each place Kakashi touched him seemed to burst with a warm tingling that left him craving more. Still, he was somewhat embarrassed about writhing, moaning, sharing all of his expressions of intimate pleasure - however, Kakashi quickly worked to rid him of that little inhibition.

"Iruka..." The jounin murmured, voice steeped in a rough huskiness, "Tell me when you're close." As he spoke, he trailed kisses down the other man's body, starting at the pink, swollen lips, and then down to the slim neck, the hardened peaks of silky nipples, the toned stomach, the small, perfectly shaped navel, and finally, the tip of his lover's sex. Naturally, Iruka's breathing immediately sped to panting, and a thin sheen of sweat brought a glistening shimmer to his skin. Instinctively, his legs opened, and his hips gave several small thrusts, all of which Kakashi accepted into his mouth as his fingers stroked the base. All Iruka was aware of was a swimming world of pleasure, flowing through his veins, his consciousness, every part of him, beginning and ending with Kakashi's warm, talented tongue and lips.

Tanned fingers found their way into wild silver hair, frantically stroking and grasping as the pressure in his body built dangerously close to completion.

"Kakashi!" He finally gasped, arching his back as he struggled to regain his breath. The jounin pulled away at once, leaving Iruka's sex dripping little streams of glossy precum. It had not occurred to the younger man yet exactly how Kakashi planned to make love to him; rather, he trusted the man so implicitly that he had simply supposed however it was would be perfect.

Needless to say, he was a bit shocked as slick fingers began to carefully probe his entrance.

"Kakashi - wh-what?" He panted, looking down at the man kneeling between his spread legs.

"If I don't get you ready, it'll hurt." He explained shortly, barely able to think rationally himself. His own neglected sex pounded with the force of his arousal, and he fought to resist the urge to take Iruka roughly for the sake of the intense climax that would result. Yet he gently worked his fingers inside the man, lubricating his entrance with the clear oil doled out to ANBU for greasing the hinges of their armor. It wasn't the prime substance for the job, but it would serve a thousand times better than nothing, and for that, Kakashi was grateful. His hips began to strain against his unnaturally still posture as Iruka's body constricted and pulsed against his fingers, tight, slick, hot. Once he was certain the chuunin was ready for him, Kakashi lowered his body, all but draping himself over the younger man as he positioned his sex at his entrance.

As the initial thrust began, Kakashi laced his fingers with Iruka's, and engaged him in a burning kiss. For a moment, he expected it would be the chuunin who would break the kiss in order to cry out, but he instead found himself pulling away to moan sharply in pleasure.

"So - so - so good, ah - Iruka..." Kakashi panted, kissing away the tears that gathered at the corners of his lover's tightly closed eyes.

Iruka, for his part, did his best to relax as his body struggled to accommodate the considerable length buried inside of him. However, Kakashi's little movements began to stimulate a certain place within him that caused his own hips to jerk in response, as if urging the copy nin deeper. Upon the first real thrust, Iruka cried out as waves of pleasure arose from that very sensation, causing his whole body to clench from the intensity of it. His thighs pressed against Kakashi's hips, moving with his rhythm, tightening and relaxing in perfect, quick time. As long as his lover worked that sweet, sensitive spot inside of him, Iruka was suspended in a world of sharp, constant pleasure. Without so much as noting it, he began to cry out upon each thrust, spurring on Kakashi's arousal.

Iruka's orgasm had already begun by the time Kakashi wrapped his hand around his sex. He arched his back, spreading his legs to allow the deepest possible penetration as his climax rolled through him. The sensation that had begun at that small spot inside of him washed all through his body, bringing his senses to a nearly unbearable crescendo. At that moment, Kakashi's orgasm began as well, triggered by the enraptured cries and forceful pulsing of his lover. He thrust in deep one last time, and, with a single, abrupt moan, spilled his seed within Iruka, completing both of them.

In the moments that followed, Kakashi gently pulled out of the chuunin, and laid down beside him, pulling him as close as possible. Iruka was exhausted, naturally, but felt fulfilled in all senses, and deeply peaceful. Kakashi waited for something terrible to come to mind - that Iruka was seeing someone else, that he didn't know his true nature, that he would leave him the next morning, that he was only there for the physical pleasure. Yet nothing of the sort occurred, and thus, he held Iruka as one would cradle a delicate object, with little force but great passion, close to the heart.

Drifting off further and further into the seas of sleep, Iruka gave a yawn and gently caressed Kakashi's hand, noting the slight burns there for the first time.

"Kakashi, what happened?" He asked softly, half-asleep already.

"Well, you got pretty turned on down there..." The copy nin replied, hoping to conceal the hint of a chuckle that tinted his tone.

"I don't think..." Came the confused reply.

"Chidori." Kakashi answered honestly, curling his lover's hand into his own.

"Does it hurt?" Iruka nestled in closer.

"A little bit. But it will heal." He kissed soft brown locks, and listened for a moment to quiet breathing before adding, "I love you."

"I love you, Kakashi." Came the heartfelt reply.

For once, Kakashi found himself fending off sleep, fighting to remain awake in the smallest hours of the morning simply to listen to Iruka's breathing, to the matched rhythms of their hearts, to the perfection of the flow.

* * *

**Thanks for the reads, fellas. You guys are great. Feel free to throw in any suggestions - a sequel for Flow is currently in the works, featuring more Sasuke, more Naruto, and more grit! As always, please review - and thanks again!**


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